Continuing my favorite movie theme (see here, and here if you care) it’s time to think about war movies. Now war movies are almost exclusively a male thing, and I’m male so feel fully qualified to talk about this one.

Like sci-fi or period movies there are many sub-sets of the genre. There are big picture epics like The Longest Day, other films take a certain dramatic license with an event (The Great Escape), others tell the story of a single mission (Dambusters) and finally for now, those that use a conflict as background to great drama such as Apocalypse Now or the Pianist.

After reading through the list there is a definite British bias in my choices, but I think that may reflect the rich history of the country.  Again there is no order here, just great movies that I hope people will enjoy.

• The Longest Day – OK, maybe one stands out from the rest, and this may be the best of all. It’s an accurate, star studded, well-told version of what may be the greatest story of the 20^th century. Like most of the films on this list the reality makes a far better story than fiction ever could.
• A Bridge Too Far – Only the British would celebrate a defeat quite like this. It tells the story of the battle for the Arnhem Bridge and Operation Market Garden. Like the Longest Day, no writer could come up with a story like this. Again a great cast tells a very dramatic story.
• Apocalypse Now – Martin Sheen is brilliant as the guy sent to kill the insane Col. Kurtz. Spectacular, long (over 3 hours for the full directors cut), and full of great supporting characters like Robert Duvall as Bill Kilgore. Good lines abound, and all wrapped up by great story that asks a lot of questions of everyone.
• Zulu – Michael Caine is 100% stiff upper lip British Officer. Great action and like all great stories, the battle of Rorkes Drift really happened. 

It’s been a pretty catastrophic week for Manchester football fans, both the Sky blue and reds. But for Manchester United their failure to qualify for the Champions League knockout phase was perhaps more keenly felt as the club has been part of three of the last four finals.

It looked very possible; all they needed to do was get a point against FC Basel. This is a side that has a solid record of producing a performance when the situation demanded it. Games like this are defined by a moment of magic, a special performance and Wednesday night it never happened.

When the groups were drawn Alex Ferguson himself couple not have picked a better group. It looked weak, there was no question who the big team was and this makes United’s elimination was even more eye opening. United were not good enough, results were poor and the price is elimination.

This is the 16^th year in a row United have qualified for the Champions League. This is only the second time they failed to make it out of the group stage. Benfica won the group that time too.

OK Go are an Alt band from Chicago, other than their music they are best known for their interesting videos. This might be the coolest one so far.
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I’ve sent most of the last couple of months working off the main site at work. I was in my regular office for the first time in a week. A friend dropped by my desk, we used to work together on a project for a year or so. She is one of those I’ll go to for advise and help, or when I want an independent review.

She’s very smart, has good insights, get’s the politics at work and has helped me a lot. While we don’t talk every week, we exchange the occasional IM and I will find the time when she drops by. As she did today.

While she is smart, educated and so on, she’s not seen that much of the world. It just does not contain much of a fascination for her. But her daughter is heading to London for a year in college and she had a few questions.

She talked about the eye watering expense of living in London, I could do little but sympathize there, but then she got s very serious look…

G “Dave, I’m really worried about what she’s going to eat.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

J: “You know what the British diet is like. It’s full of cholesterol. Eggs, bacon, all those fries and deep fried food. I think that’s about all people there eat.”

Today is mums birthday; obviously it’s a day full of emotions for those who loved her. But there is more to it than that, it’s wrapped up with everything going on at this time of year.

I do miss her so very much. I feel luckier than ever this morning, my life is rich and full in a way I could not conceive of 18 months ago. Every day I see the changes I’ve made have been so rewarding, but I do wish I could share them with mum.

Here is the view from the window for December. A little different, somehow a lone leaf has hung on into December.

The have been a lot of movies full of CGI creatures, aliens and monsters. Lots of directors want you to know they spent a lot of money on them, spend way too much time showing them off and leave little to the imagination.

I’m someone who can happily sit through badly dubbed dialogue of just about any Godzilla movie to get a glimpse of the big guy fighting clouds of smog or giant moths. It’s the journey that makes it so special, put the monster front and center and the suspense and magic is lost.

First up, this isn’t a rant against CGI. Computers have given us some monsters or aliens for the ages. Top of the list was the guy with the eyes on his hands from Pans Labyrinth, I caught it on TV recently and had forgotten how good it was. Also making my non-exhaustive list are the mindless bugs from Starship Troopers, the tentacle faced guy from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mummies, Megalodon and the Kraken from the otherwise horrible remake of Clash of the titans are all wonderful.

My problem comes from lack of imagination, in an industry that’s history is built on the stuff. Just because teen-vampires are cool right now, doesn’t mean we can’t have the occasional Bram Stoker type vampire to switch it up.

Lets look back to the classic monsters of pre-CGI. As cool as CGI can be, does anything really compare to Giger’s xenomorph from Alien? Has there ever been a monster that had made an impression on you like that? And I mean from the first movie, perhaps the ultimate thriller in outer space. I saw it when I was about 12, and it still scares me today.

Runner up on my old-school monster list is the Shark from Jaws. The limitations of the technology forced Spielberg to be creative in his camerawork and editing. And arguably made a better, more original movie as a result of working around the limitations, rather than with in them.

I love the low budget movie Darkstar, it’s great sci-fi. The captain preserved in a block of ice, intelligent nuclear bombs and a crew gone partially mad after decades in space. Of course there is the monster, and it’s a painted beach ball. Clearly director John Carpenters money had run out by this point, but everyone remembers it, and it’s impossible to argue its originality.

Which is most of what makes a monster cool.

I’ve been trying to work out the last movie monster that really left an impression on me. I think it’s the creature from Cloverfield. And that worked in part because we never really saw everything.

So much was left to the imagination, and that’s way scarier than anything Hollywood can throw at us.
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Related articles

• Monsters (lacer.wordpress.com)
• Cloverfield (mhbd.blogspot.com)
• Cloverfield (jmountswritteninblood.com)

Today was expansion draft day. Montreal got to pick 10 players from the rest of the clubs around the league. First pick was Brian Ching (former USL sounder), who said he’d retire rather than play for Montreal. We’ll see where that goes.

We lost James Riles in the draft proper, then a few minutes later Tyson Wahl was sold to Montreal (MLS calls it “allocation money“, but it’s the same thing). Riley was then traded to Chivas for Justin Braun and Gerson Mayen.

Braun is the big pick up there for Montreal, a very good looking forward on the fringe of the US national team.

OK, Riley was unprotected, that was just a numbers game as the Sounders could not protect everyone. Wahl on the other hand was a trade that happened after the team knew about Riley leaving, and indicates they have plans underway for those positions.

On the bright side hey cleared over $150K in cap space, but they lost both outside backs. With a new keeper and both outside backs potentially being new (Evans as right back maybe?) it’s going to be a very different looking defense next year. I think that might be good as there were time’s it was an issue this year.

I’m sorry to see Riley go, he’s been a big part of the clubs success since being picked by Seattle in the expansion draft prior to the 2009 season. It’s not just his runs down the right that will be missed, off the field he contributed through his support of Renton Boys & Girls Club.

Related articles

• Riley Selected by Montreal. Wahl Traded There. (gosounders.com)
• 2011 MLS Expansion Draft: Impact Selects 10 Including Brian Ching (wvhooligan.com)
• Montreal take Riley, ship him to Chivas for Braun, Mayen (mlssoccer.com)
• Impact ignore retirement threat, make Ching first pick in expansion draft (soccerbyives.net)

For the second year running we are approaching the expansion draft. Next week Montreal get to pick 10 players for their new MLS squad. Each existing team get to protect 11 players; those left off the list are fair game for selection. Teams can only loose one player to the expansion draft, last year they could loose two.

As before Generation Adidas and home grown players don’t count against the 11. For Seattle only Michael Tetteh is automatically protected.

So the big question is who do the Sounders protect? There are a numbers of things that have to be taken into account when creating this list.

• Where the Sounders have depth (midfield)
• Is anyone going to be lost to free agency/transfer (Alonso? Montero?)
• Who do we have coming in during the transfer window (goalkeeper)
• What do Montreal need/want
• Is there anyone Montreal does not want

So it’s time for the list and my reasons.

There the people I think are the automatics:

• Alonso
• Rosales
• Fernandez
• Montero.

Rosales is out of contract, but both sides are making noises that it’s a done deal so he stays on the automatic list for me.

• Zakuani

Coming back from a massive injury, but you can’t expose him as he’d be snapped up in a second. OK, that’s the obvious ones accounted for, lets fill out the rest…